First of all, here's a screenshot from FXCM's flavour of MetaTrader 4 on January 15th 2015 :
The cause of the big gap was the following announcement from the Swiss National Bank at 9:30 GMT this morning:
Filed under Brokers by 
It seems FXCM aren't the only forex broker suffering unfortunate side effects following the Swiss National Bank's unexpected announcement yesterday. I have a number of accounts with Alpari UK, fortunately in all the circumstances for test purposes only. Whilst I have yet to receive an email from them on this topic, they have posted the following notice on their web site this morning:
More on Swiss National Bank’s "Unexpected Policy" Bankrupts Alpari UK
Filed under Brokers by
I attended the 2015 FIX Trading Community EMEA Trading Conference yesterday at Old Billingsgate in London yesterday. You'll hear more from me about all that in due course, because I'm under strict instructions to "quote check" with assorted speakers before pressing the "Publish" button! However I am able to reveal that I bumped into Kevin Houstoun, Chairman of Rapid Addition, at the post conference "cocktail party". Kevin pointed me at his work on the UK Government's Foresight Review on the Future of Computer Trading in Financial Markets. Here's an overview of that project:
Filed under Regulation by
In a press release dated April 21st 2015 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced:
The unsealing of a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Nav Sarao Futures Limited PLC (Sarao Futures) and Navinder Singh Sarao (Sarao) (collectively, Defendants). The CFTC Complaint charges the Defendants with unlawfully manipulating, attempting to manipulate, and spoofing — all with regard to the E-mini S&P 500 near month futures contract (E-mini S&P). The Complaint had been filed under seal on April 17, 2015 and kept sealed until today’s arrest of Sarao by British authorities acting at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). After the arrest, the DOJ unsealed its own criminal Complaint charging Sarao with substantively the same misconduct.
It seems that the CFTC has a less than secure grasp of UK corporate law, since over on this side of the pond companies are either "Limited" or "Public Limited" but not both. A quick search of Companies House reveals that the former applies in this case, and that Nav Sarao Futures Limited is in fact registered as limited company number 05497320. The CFTC announcement goes on to say that:
Filed under Regulation by
